The Ramble for 5/31/11

I should explain my absence the last few days of last week; My truck broke down, and they had to put a new transmission in it. I suppose after 650,000 miles, it was time. The truck handles just fine and now I have the internet working.

Speaking of the internet working, and being gone for a while, we were offline for a while, because a search engine bot went nuts on us. We’re now back online and doing well. Thanks for the notes of concern. I didn’t find out about it until I was out on the road, and in another truck… I didn’t have my full computer system and that made it hard to fix from there. Of course, when I got home, it was a holiday weekend, meaning the ISP was short staffed. (Sigh)

THANKS,DAVID: I want to take a moment today to thank David L, without whose tireless writing efforts, this blog would have stopped existing a year or so back. David’s been busting his bump getting the Morning Scramble out, and keeping an eye on things generally. Because of my job situation, he’s been doing more writing than I have and I want to ensure he gets appropriate credit for his efforts. A tip of the hat to David…

Palin-flamethrower, Geoffrey Dunn of the Huffington Post released The Lies of Sarah Palin[2]: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power May 10th and Frank Bailey, former Aide to Palin, teamed up with Palin-critic Jeanne Devon to release Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin[3]: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years on May 24th. Ardent opponents of Sarah Palin have been highly-anticipating these books which promised to tear down Palin’s public image for the long-term.

Interestingly, Geoffrey Dunn’s book has not even hit Amazon’s top-100[4] list since its release; and after a week of media coverage including appearances on NBC, ABC’s The View, Fox News, CNN, and many more, Frank Bailey’s “memoir” disappointingly debuted at #40 and has already fallen to #75.

There’s a reason they’re not selling. Americans have come to recognize a politically driven hit piece when they see it. If Palin is so very unpopular as the left and the press keep telling us, why all the attack books coming out? Why all the effort to bring down someone who they keep telling us couldn’t possibly win? Bottom line; They’re scared to death the woman is going to run. They’re trying to make sure we end up with an establishment Republican milquetoast centrist like McCain, who can be easily defeated in the general election.

[5]

Another example of leftie love

Look, I’m not convinced Palin is the best we’ve got to run, but as Steve notes, the Anti-Palin morons have just about shot their wad… there’s no more dirt left to uncover… the woman is fully vetted, they’ve already gotten about as vulgar as they can get in trying to bring her down… and they failed. There’s little question that with no more mud to be slung at her, she is among the most potent of anti-Obama candidates. Certainly, a far more powerful choice than any of the establishment Republicans. And I’ll get to the divide between the establishment Republicans and the Rank and file at this end of today’s Ramble. But as to Palin, I recall a similar attack mode being used on Ronald Reagan.. by both establishment Republicans and by the left as he was an up and coming star. I remember the statment he made as the Republicans put up yet another centrist in the middle 70’s…

Oh, no, wait. Actually, Covert Operative Sunstein passes his day doing more or less what the sign on the door says: He collects information about regulatory affairs. More specifically, he is charged by the president with “an unprecedented government-wide review of regulations” in order to “improve or remove those that are out-of-date, unnecessary, excessively burdensome or in conflict with other rules.”

[7]

Mark Steyn

How many has he got “removed” so far? Well, last week he took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to crow that dairy farmers will henceforth be exempted from the burdens of a 1970s EPA-era directive classifying milk as an “oil” and subjecting it, as Professor Sunstein typed with a straight face, “to costly rules designed to prevent oil spills”. But Ol’ MacDonald and his crack team of Red Adair-trained milkmaids can henceforth relax because now, writes Professor Sunstein, Washington is “giving new meaning to the phrase, ‘Don’t cry over spilled milk.'”

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that that’s as far as they’ve managed to get. It’s my guess that they’ve actually added more regulations than they have removed. After all, someone who believes government to be the end all and be all and Sunstein certainly does that, is not likely to expend any effort whatsoever to lower the power of government. And notice, please, that there is no mention whatsoever of the legislative process. This has somehow managed to get bypassed utterly. Or, as Mark puts it, udderly. (slap) A nod to Martin[8] for calling it to my attention.

I’m confident that any comparison of economic coverage in the Bush years and the coverage now would show far fewer variants of the word ‘unexpectedly’ in stories suggesting economic doldrums. It’s obviously going to be hard to achieve the unacknowledged goal of many mainstream journalists â€” the president’s re-election â€” if the economic slump continues. So they characterize economic setbacks as unexpected, with the implication that there’s still every reason to believe that, in Herbert Hoover’s phrase, prosperity is just around the corner. . . . We tend to hire presidents who we think can foresee the future effect of their policies. No one does so perfectly. But if the best sympathetic observers can say about the results is that they are ‘unexpected,’ voters may decide someone else can do better.

Absolutely and without question. But you know, there is a hint that it was in fact expected to be bad; I’ve noticed, and I’m sure you have as well, how often the employment numbers are revised downward after the glowing headlines have disappeared.

Poland’s Solidarity-era legend, ex-president and 1983 Nobel Peace Prize winner said Friday he would not accept an invitation to meet with fellow Nobel winner US President Barack Obama.

“It’s difficult to tell journalists what you’d like to say to the president of a superpower. This time I won’t tell him, I won’t meet him, it doesn’t suit me,” Walesa told Poland’s public broadcaster TVP.

It seems that having paid the price for fighting an oppressive socialist government, Walesa is smart enough not to snuggle up to someone trying his best to build one. Good for him.

Boehner Gets It: I’ve certainly had problems with him in the past and will likely again in future, but he’s got this one spot on. Jen Rubin:[13]

[14]

John Boehner

He is blunt about the president’s conduct toward Israel.

“It is part of what they’ve done for the last two and a half years â€” throw allies under the bus in an effort to reach out to people who hate us.”

Just so. And of course, like most bullied kids, Obama doesn’t understand that just because you’re licking their boots, doesn’t mean the bully is going to like you.

McCain’s problem wasn’t that he was insufficiently conservative but that the voters were fed up with Republicans after eight years of Bush and six years of a GOP Congress, two wars, Katrina, and a global financial collapse.

Then tell me how you explain the mood of the electorate today, which is decidedly far more conservative than a McCain could possibly survive. You see here’s the problem; after eight years of the centrist Bush the mood among the GOP majority was for real conservative. McCain failed on every count. I suggest that the democrats and the press (but I repeat myself ) do that very well which is precisely why they were so enamored with the idea that he was running.

Notice, please, that the democrats have not been going after establishment republicans, but rather the grass roots. That’s because they see the GOP grassroots as a bigger threat.

The fact is that enlarge plurality a merit and support cutting the size and scope of government, cutting taxes, cutting spending, do not trust government per se’ something on the order of 65% at this point support a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. constitution. The last poll I saw said something on the order of 70% oppose Obama care.

Certainly, the democrats are never going to support moving in the direction the public wanbtrs, but, and here’s the point, neither are centrist establishment republicans. Certainly, McCain is one of these. McCain spent his entire campaign bending over backwards for the left who, once McCain won the nomination, when all out to defeat him. And frankly, given the lack of support from the GOP a rank and file, it’s no surprise and that they were able to do that.

It’s as I said last year at Pajamas Media:

The result of ignoring those clues is that Republicans have lost the last two elections. The call that we’ve seen growing so dramatically over the last several months is for the Republicans to actually stand up for conservative principles. In other words, it’s time for the Republicans to return to their core values. If that means replacing some of the standing GOP leadership, so much the better.

I tell you this in all honesty; if the GOP doesn’t come up with a real conservative, and truly start fighting for conservative principles, (And McCain and ….Huntsman Huckabee, etc, etc simply do not qualify…. )… Obama will have his second term. Not because he’s the more popular, but because the lukewarm GOP leadership is less popular among the conservative majority.

Look, gang, it’s no secret that the GOP isn’t exactly happy about it’s own base. That’s why the tea party exists. While conservatives and libertarians make up the majority of the GOP, they don’t make up even half of the leadership. The rank and file are interested in principles of conservatism and libertarianism. They want to see those principles applied to governing. The GOP leadership has no interest anymore in such matters, being more enamored with attaining and remaining in power. Those principles are just standing in their way.
Perhaps a look at the original NR mission statement as penned by WHB deserves a look:

# It is the job of centralized government (in peacetime) to protect its citizens’ lives, liberty and property. All other activities of government tend to diminish freedom and hamper progress. The growth of government (the dominant social feature of this century) must be fought relentlessly. In this great social conflict of the era, we are, without reservations, on the libertarian side.
# The profound crisis of our era is, in essence, the conflict between the Social Engineers, who seek to adjust mankind to conform with scientific utopias, and the disciples of Truth, who defend the organic moral order. We believe that truth is neither arrived at nor illuminated by monitoring election results, binding though these are for other purposes, but by other means, including a study of human experience. On this point we are, without reservations, on the conservative side.
# The century’s most blatant force of satanic utopianism is communism. We consider “coexistence” with communism neither desirable nor possible, nor honorable; we find ourselves irrevocably at war with communism and shall oppose any substitute for victory.
# The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than “newness”) and of honest intellectual combat (rather than conformity).
# The most alarming single danger to the American political system lies in the fact that an identifiable team of Fabian operators is bent on controlling both our major political parties (under the sanction of such fatuous and unreasoned slogans as “national unity,” “middle-of-the-road,” “progressivism,” and “bipartisanship.”) Clever intriguers are reshaping both parties in the image of Babbitt, gone Social-Democrat. When and where this political issue arises, we are, without reservations, on the side of the traditional two-party system that fights its feuds in public and honestly; and we shall advocate the restoration of the two-party system at all costs.
# The competitive price system is indispensable to liberty and material progress. It is threatened not only by the growth of Big Brother government, but by the pressure of monopolies(including union monopolies. What is more, some labor unions have clearly identified themselves with doctrinaire socialist objectives. The characteristic problems of harassed business have gone unreported for years, with the result that the public has been taught to assume (almost instinctively) that conflicts between labor and management are generally traceable to greed and intransigence on the part of management. Sometimes they are; often they are not. NATIONAL REVIEW will explore and oppose the inroads upon the market economy caused by monopolies in general, and politically oriented unionism in particular; and it will tell the violated businessman’s side of the story.
# No superstition has more effectively bewitched America’s Liberal elite than the fashionable concepts of world government, the United Nations, internationalism, international atomic pools, etc. Perhaps the most important and readily demonstrable lesson of history is that freedom goes hand in hand with a state of political decentralization, that remote government is irresponsible government. It would make greater sense to grant independence to each of our 50 states than to surrender U.S. sovereignty to a world organization.

Point number five here is particularly potent. We were told we needed a fresh approach and to get along with the other side. Well, we might try “compassionate conservatism,” except it’s already been done and all it did was grow government and allow us to abandon our principles. It also nominated John McCain and ultimately helped lose the general election. McCain was defeated because conservatives and libertarians â€” who would usually be supportive of real conservatives â€” sat on their hands in November, having identified McCain not as a conservative but as part of the problem.

Ronald Reagan it was pointed out back in 1975, when the Republican party was then as now, mired in centrism:

“I am impatient with those Republicans who after the last election rushed into print saying, “We must broaden the base of our party” – when what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.

[16]Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?

Let our banner proclaim our belief in a free market as the greatest provider for the people.

Let us explore ways to ward off socialism, not by increasing government’s coercive power, but by increasing participation by the people in the ownership of our industrial machine.

It is time to reassert our principles and raise them to full view. And if there are those who cannot subscribe to these principles, then let them go their way.”

So, why are the left and the press going after the strongest spokespeople for real conservative values? Because they’ve seen such people win in very strong fashion before…. with Reagan, for one. They recognize the kind of threat it is to have such people running. Threat, that is, to the Big government left, and the establishment Republicans who refuse to fight the fight of freedom, the centrists who are more interested in getting along rather than actually standing for conservative values. That’s why the press, and the left, are coming out with everything they have against anyone who dares raise their head above the firing wall, as an actual conservative. Such as Palin, now, as I mention above. They recognize that such a person will win easily in the general election. They sense, correctly, that such ideals have more popularity by far than they themselves do.

History has shown us the path to victory. It’s also shown us how to lose. We need only follow the victor’s path. It comes down to this:

Either the GOP offers up a real conservative, a person driven by conservative principles and not the weak-willed centrists like McCain, et al, Obama will have his second term.